Fluid control systems for controlling flow of hydraulic or pneumatic fluid have been used in automated manufacturing equipment, production lines and numerous industrial applications. Many of these fluid control systems take the form of a valve manifold that has a series of manifold valve blocks assembled together. Some manifold blocks house a single solenoid that has a spring return for moving the valve when the solenoid is deactuated or on the other hand, some manifold blocks house a double solenoid valve that has a first solenoid when actuated that moves the valve to the on position and a second solenoid when actuated that moves the valve to the off position.
Each valve manifold block houses a circuit board which has circuitry printed thereon to allow actuation of the valve unit or units mounted to the valve manifold block. The circuit board also has circuits printed thereon to carry voltage to other circuit boards for the other valves mounted on other valve manifold blocks.
What is needed is a single line system between a driver and slave devices that provides information therebetween that can be used for smart slave devices or other slave devices. In particular, it is desired that a circuit board that can pass through a valve manifold block and has a serial or single communication line for each respective valve unit and/or supplementary control, programming or parameterization. With the advent of smart slave devices, for example solenoid valves, proportional devices or pressure switches, it is desirable to transfer data between a driver and the slave device.